The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying

by Nina Riggs

An exquisite memoir about how to live--and love--every day with "death in the room," from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air.
"We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other."
Nina Riggs was just thirty-se An exquisite memoir about how to live--and love--every day with "death in the room," from poet Nina Riggs, mother...

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying Reviews

MichelleJul 22, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

ElizabethMay 24, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

I won a Goodreads Giveaway for this book and was privileged to receive an advance copy. This is certainly not a book I would typically pick off of a shelf, but I am so glad I read it.
I have struggled with a paralyzing fear of mortality since I was a child, and was concerned that thi...

?We all have to learn that what cannot be cured, must be indured.?
The Bright Hour hit me hard, perhaps even harder than I was expecting it would. It's poignant, beautifully written, and painfully relatable for anyone who is familiar with the events that are described in the boo...

(ARC received for review by NetGalley)
Nina was thirty-seven when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it sucked. A lot. Her sons were six and eight. That's how I met her: our older sons got to be friends when they were in the same class at school. She was a totally awesome per...

KristenJul 10, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

EmilieMar 31, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Elyse WaltersNov 13, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

Canadian ReaderJan 06, 2018

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Renee (itsbooktalk.com)Jun 11, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

Drew PerryApr 12, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

AmmarAug 22, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

Yelda Basar MoersJun 23, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

Barbara (The Bibliophage)Nov 07, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

BrettneFeb 26, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

PeebeeJan 31, 2018

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

Emma SeaJul 14, 2018

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

BookBullyMay 15, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

Samantha PriceJun 15, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

RebeccaMar 29, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

PatriciaMay 01, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

Text PublishingFeb 22, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

Sue Gerhardt GriffithsJun 13, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Liza FiremanDec 07, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

Sherri ThackerAug 11, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

John DubersteinApr 12, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

MarikaMar 27, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

I won a Goodreads Giveaway for this book and was privileged to receive an advance copy. This is certainly not a book I would typically pick off of a shelf, but I am so glad I read it.
I have struggled with a paralyzing fear of mortality since I was a child, and was concerned that thi...

?We all have to learn that what cannot be cured, must be indured.?
The Bright Hour hit me hard, perhaps even harder than I was expecting it would. It's poignant, beautifully written, and painfully relatable for anyone who is familiar with the events that are described in the boo...

(ARC received for review by NetGalley)
Nina was thirty-seven when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it sucked. A lot. Her sons were six and eight. That's how I met her: our older sons got to be friends when they were in the same class at school. She was a totally awesome per...

A Beautifully written memoir by Nina Riggs about her journey through life when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This book is cry worthy and amazingly brought out to teach so many lessons. The way she appreciated life knowing she can be gone anytime soon.
Nina Riggs speaks abou...

Nina Riggs began her blog Suspicious Country (which morphed into this book) after being dx with breast cancer at age 37. Beautifully written, much like poetry, but with a narrative that no one wants to experience. She is very present in the moment, appreciating life even during the sca...

Lori SommerfeltMay 02, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

I won a Goodreads Giveaway for this book and was privileged to receive an advance copy. This is certainly not a book I would typically pick off of a shelf, but I am so glad I read it.
I have struggled with a paralyzing fear of mortality since I was a child, and was concerned that thi...

SharifJul 12, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Milli (MiracleMilliReads)May 06, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

I won a Goodreads Giveaway for this book and was privileged to receive an advance copy. This is certainly not a book I would typically pick off of a shelf, but I am so glad I read it.
I have struggled with a paralyzing fear of mortality since I was a child, and was concerned that thi...

?We all have to learn that what cannot be cured, must be indured.?
The Bright Hour hit me hard, perhaps even harder than I was expecting it would. It's poignant, beautifully written, and painfully relatable for anyone who is familiar with the events that are described in the boo...

(ARC received for review by NetGalley)
Nina was thirty-seven when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it sucked. A lot. Her sons were six and eight. That's how I met her: our older sons got to be friends when they were in the same class at school. She was a totally awesome per...

A Beautifully written memoir by Nina Riggs about her journey through life when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This book is cry worthy and amazingly brought out to teach so many lessons. The way she appreciated life knowing she can be gone anytime soon.
Nina Riggs speaks abou...

Maureen L.Oct 31, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

Renee GoddingDec 10, 2018

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

I didn?t like this book. Do you know how our brains leap around from thought to thought, much like monkeys in a tree randomly jump from branch to branch? Well, this book felt similarly jumbled and chaotic, a bunch of random incidents, thoughts, memories, experiences, leaping here, th...

I would like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC of this book.
I was impressed it was in Hardcover. I loved the cream coloured jacket with what looked like bath bombs that you can get from Lush.
This is a terrific memoir with a very strong start. The chapters a...

?Often funny and absurd, The Bright Hour is about sitting with your own mortality, and the idea of your life coming to an end always being in the room with you?Nina reminds us not to waste time under the covers and instead get out there and make the most of it.?
Frankie
?T...

I always feel a little strange giving stars to memoirs -- it's like you're grading someone's life. And then when the memoir is about them dying, it's even worse -- how can you give a bad grade to someone who's dead? But this book has very high marks from a lot of other people, so my av...

You can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
I love everything about the very long blurb; I think it tells you all you need to know in terms of what this book is about. And Nina's writing absolutely delivered on sharing with us her very poignant, thought provoking, often laug...

All of the highest praise for this gorgeous, wise, profound, essential book. A million stars. ...

Former director of palliative care at a large hospital in Toronto, author/speaker/teacher Stephen Jenkinson has commented that people die as they live. There may be no dramatic revelations or reckonings, no great wisdom about life to dispense . . .
Therein lies the problem with this ...

Nina Riggs was the great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the beloved, brilliant Transcendentalist poet and essayist whose work I adore. Nina was a poet herself and a lover of books. At the young age of 37 when she was a mother to boys the same age as my two boys-- 5 a...

What to say about this stunning, heartbreaking memoir that could ever do it justice? The author is diagnosed with terminal cancer the same year that her beloved mother dies AND her son is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Any one of these things could be a memoir on its own. Also, the au...

This is the most gorgeous memoir I've ever read, and a primer on how to live life fully, honestly, and courageously, no matter how much time we have left. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"And there it is: The beautiful, vibrant, living world goes on."
"I'm terrified. I'm...

A beautifully written memoir that reads like a long gorgeous lyrical poem. I was immediately drawn to Nina Riggs?s words - they touched me in ways I can?t begin to explain.
At first I wasn?t sure how I?d feel reading a memoir about a person with cancer and why I even chose to ...

Nina Riggs wrote The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying as she was being treated for stage four breast cancer, the kind that?s become only treatable, not curable. During the same time, Nina was saying goodbye to her mother, who had the same disease and prognosis. That gives yo...

Is it weird to have someone else's memoir as your favorite book?!?! Because this is one of my favorite books and ABSOLUTELY one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I've been ruminating on it for days and still don't know how to review it other to say that you need to read it. T...

Wow. What a beautifully written book! She was a true fighter!! ...

gorgeous. devoured it in half a day. ...

I debated with myself for several days over whether I would write a review of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, when I knew my review would be less than glowingly positive, as so many reviews I've read have been. I was hesitant, for one, because I didn't want to come across as callously u...

Nina Riggs at the age of 38 was diagnosed with a breast cancer, the treatment it for became metastatic and incurable. That was only a few months only after her mother died from cancer. This book is so so sad, and so amazing. And so sad.
When Breath Becomes Air gave a different perspec...

I won this memoir from Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This memoir was written by Nina Riggs, who like many other members of her family, contracted cancer. This memoir is written over the four stages of her disease which started as breast cancer, expanded to spin...

I won a Goodreads Giveaway for this book and was privileged to receive an advance copy. This is certainly not a book I would typically pick off of a shelf, but I am so glad I read it.
I have struggled with a paralyzing fear of mortality since I was a child, and was concerned that thi...

?We all have to learn that what cannot be cured, must be indured.?
The Bright Hour hit me hard, perhaps even harder than I was expecting it would. It's poignant, beautifully written, and painfully relatable for anyone who is familiar with the events that are described in the boo...

Kaytee Bole (glitteringeyes418 on Instagram)Jun 22, 2017

I would like to say my five star review is rooted in my own literary acumen and this particular book's compelling, beautiful, almost lyric prose. And the book is filled with beauty, lyric and profane. But since it was written by my wife, I feel like I have to come clean and say I'd be ...

Nina Riggs was a dear friend and a writer so sharp and insistent and unflinching it made everyone who read her work feel like they might not be living quite hard enough. Here's why nobody ought to read a friend's review: we're all grieving her loss so intensely that nobody can see quit...

?Do they have book club in the afterlife??
?I love you? ......
?I love you? ....
?I love you?..... ?these are the things we say now after book club? .....
?Why didn?t we say them before??
Nina Riggs was 38 years of age when she was diagnosed with in...

A natural successor, or partner, to When Breath Becomes Air, with which it shares beautiful prose and a literary/philosophical approach to terminal cancer. It?s a wonderful book, so wry and honest, with a voice that reminds me of Anne Lamott and Elizabeth McCracken. (For a while ther...

Nina is diagnosed with breast cancer ("no one dies from one tiny spot"), and her disease later progresses to stage IV (in her lungs). This is her memoir on living with cancer, thoughts on death and dying, and comment on life. With my own Stage IV diagnosis, I thought it would be easy t...

So. I was not prepared to collapse into this book like I did. My friends know I'm not a huge memoir fan and often I find books of this nature fall into the "pity me" category. But, oh, Nina Riggs. How you captured my interest and pulled me along with you!
Yes, this is a cancer book...

I appreciated the conversational and honest writing style and the short, vignette-like chapters. What really took away from the book for me were the constant reminders to all of us that she was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as frequently bringing up the philosopher Montai...

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